Extensions In Conflict: .Law, .Lawyer, .Legal, .Attorney, .ESQ + many many More

Earlier today we listed the new gTLD strings which had 4 or more applications.

Obviously those are conflicting applications but there is another type of conflicting applications; those that don’t match but cover the same subject, or field or profession.

Take the case of the legal profession.

There are applications for .Law, .Lawyer., .Legal, .Attorney and .Esq.

That means there is a real possibility that not only will some of those new extensions will have to compete against existing extensions but they may have to compete against each other for a share of a segmented market.

This is not the only example:

There are applications for .health, .med and .Healthcare, .hospital

.gripe and .sucks

.Corp, .Company, .LLC, .LTD, .Inc, .Limited, .LLP will also have to compete with .Co that has branded it self to stand for company or corporation among other things.

About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which owns around 80K domain names and whose retail site is at MostWantedDomains.com. Michael is also a Director of RightoftheDot.com which is a consultant in the new gTLD space and a broker of super premium domains. Michael Is also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest at #Internetofficial

Interesting to see multiple for .restaurant but none for .restaurantS which is the greater searched term and makes better sense when followed by a geo (newyork.restaurants) as well as the play for larger companies with TM to protect.

@PT
Saying they are all going to fail is as poignant as saying they all will succeed and kill .com. Some will succeed and some will fail which is why you see companies applying for multiple extensions to hedge the bet and consolidate overhead.

Many average people I talk to say going to .nbc or .marriott makes more sense then going to marriott.com When these brands run TV and print ads that say go to news.nbc or newyork.marriott, people will get it fast. I was actually shocked to not see some extensions I expected to come out, like .restaurants as noted above. The curve will be shorter than a .co or .me play plus they own the .com so if someone typos they still get them.

There are 3 million restaurants in the english speaking world, plus the geo play for every town. 1% penetration is 30,000 regs. At $15 each that’s $450,000. 150% ROI for app fee and overhead in the first year if you just get 1%. Also, the registries can engage in direct marketing through trade associations and publications for all these industry specific verticals.

Standard, expected, blah blah. Story ends, newscaster throws it over to some other newscaster, who segues with “I’ll tell ya domain I’d like to see… How about dot ME??”, oblivious to the fact that such a thing already exists.

Do not underestimate the overpowering blend of cluelessness and apathy the John Q has for all this shit. I just don’t see them rousting decades of established marketing.

The entire thing is a freaking joke. Now more than ever .coms are the way to go. Who the hell is going to even remember any of these extensions ? .COM is the king ICANN ripped off many people with this one. These are not domain names they are extensions.

Some of these seem like they will do well (.APP, .LLC, etc.), but there’s something I don’t get. To use the “hotel” example from above, newyork.marriott makes sense for the brand. But there have to be at least a dozen Marriotts in NY, so what then? Who controls the next level? TimesSquare.NewYork.Marriott doesn’t look or sound good. Longer extensions and names right as mobile is taking over doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense, due to screen size – unless these sites will be using shorteners or navigating using domains-as-markers is replaced by search, apps, or a new method that will come along and disrupt the current way of doing things that has yet to be conceived.

BFitz wrote:
> 150% ROI for app fee and overhead in the first year if you just get 1%.
>

If a company selling anything gets 1%, they’re doing pretty good. Having a vast amount of business experience with tech products in Silicon Valley since the ’80s, I’ve heard the ‘optimistic’ 1% number all the time from upcoming hopefuls selling a product. “If we get just 1%, we’ll make….”

Thing is, the vast majority of the time, getting 1% of a market is hard. Really hard.

So lets say the customer is Joe Smith who is a criminal lawyer in new york.

His choice’s today as we sit are pretty limited right joesmith.com smith.com (taken
joesmithcriminallaw.com jowsmithny.com joesmithnewyork.com.

Now he will have the choice of joesmith.law, joesmith.lawyer. joesmith.esq, joemith.attorney joesmith.nyc

etc etc

So when people have a LOT of choices the price usually comes down.

competition reduces prices.

So what I’m saying from the registry side not will some of these registries have to compete against existing extensions like .com but they will have to compete against similar strings covering the same potential customers.

“So when people have a LOT of choices the price usually comes down.
…competition reduces prices”
=========================

True BUT…

ICANN is a Private Company – Not a Government

In the United States – Price-Fixing is a problem as well as other forms of collusion

ICANN is trying to finesse themselves into the Normally.Reserved.for.Government role of Price.Regulator – That does not work with current U.S. laws – It is common in third world countries (where corruption is .KING)

The Ira Magaziner “vision” of the Private Sector being the Out-Sourced Vendor doing the Normally.Reserved.for.Government tasks is fatally flawed. Ira Magaziner tried to do that with the State of Rhode Island who almost out-sourced their government tasks to Ira Magaziner’s enterprises. That was stopped when the voters came to their senses. Then Ira Magaziner tried to take that model to the Clinton Whitehouse with HillaryCare. That failed. ICANN was then Ira Magaziner’s next creation.

FastForward: Joe Smith becomes JoeSmith.LAW for $25 per year and when he becomes successful the .LAW Registry decides $25,000 per year is his new fee.

The ICANN Process would work if all the TLDs are FREE or if the price is FIXED like .COM, but there is now no government to make price-fixing the .LAW

Hey Mike, thanks for such a good coverage of the “big reveal”… Lots of articles and you extracted very useful information. Still I have stuff that I can’t wait to read… Just wanted to suggest for the blog that once news calm down a bit, perhaps you could do a “summary post” where you put a link for each article about the big reveal, this way all articles can be read by visiting this “summary post” and opening each article on a new window/tab.

Just a suggestion… and of course without taking it the coverage is still great!